France expected to adopt consent-based rape law in the wake of landmark Gisèle Pelicot case

PARIS (AP) — France’s Senate is expected to give its final approval Wednesday to a bill defining rape and other sexual assault as any non-consensual sexual act, a move that comes after the landmark drugging and rape trial that shook France and turned Gisèle Pelicot into a global icon.

The bill was presented in January, just a few weeks after 51 men were convicted of raping and abusing Gisèle Pelicot in the case which spurred a national reckoning over rape culture in France.

Marie-Charlotte Garin and Véronique Riotton, lawmakers for the Greens and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party respectively, who championed the bill, wrote, “It’s time to take action and take a new step forward in the fight against sexual violence.”

The bill states that “any non-consensual sexual act constitutes sexual assault.”

Consent is defined as “freely given, informed, specific, prior and revocable” and assessed “in the light of the circumstances.” The text says it “cannot be inferred solely from the silence or the lack of reaction of the victim.”

The bill also specifies that there is no consent if the sexual act is committed with “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.”

Last week, it was widely approved by lawmakers from almost all ranks at the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament. The far right voted against it.

The Senate is expected to give its final approval later Wednesday, the last step before the bill becomes law via official publication.

Once approved, France will join many other European nations that have similar consent-based laws on rape, including neighboring Germany, Belgium and Spain.

Until now, rape under French law was defined as penetration or oral sex using “violence, coercion, threat or surprise.” France has taken other steps in recent years to toughen punishment for sexual misconduct, including setting 15 as the age of consent.

In December, Pelicot’s ex-husband and 50 other men were convicted of sexually assaulting her between 2011 and 2020 while she was under chemical submission. Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while sentences for other defendants ranged from three to 15 years imprisonment. An appeals court handed a stiffer 10-year sentence earlier this month to the only man who challenged his conviction.

The harrowing and unprecedented trial in France exposed how pornography, chatrooms and men’s disdain for or hazy understanding of consent is fueling rape culture.

Gisèle Pelicot has since become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence.